Jeff Knox, Chief of Fraud Section at DOJ, and Alexandra Wrage, President of TRACE International, discuss whether the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is too cumbersome and byzantine in today's world. They spoke with WSJ's Dennis Berman at CFO Network.

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... it was great allegedly knocks doesn't dry t think so much for joining us ... um ... I do think in in in having read alot about it and doesn't coverage of the TPA a question for you Jeffrey will start off this ... is the cure worse than the disease so ... Avici their lot of social ills that come out of bribery downs and when when ... when when away about what those social ills on ... but um ... when you have the likes of Avon paying three hundred and fifty million dollars to investigate its operations around the world ... when you have the likes of News Corp's my employer paying upwards of two and a million dollars to investigate its ... own predicament ... you have to wonder yes there is a social good in eradicating bribery but ... is has gone too far in terms of what justice is asking what companies are willing to ... um ... yet Peter several layers of add to that question ... um I'm not able to speak on particulars regarding Hugo and his coworkers were the cases that were ... looking out ... um ... you know I will say that I'm often asked a question of ... when does the punishment fit the crime is ... this for corruption really that big a deal to really be such a priority of that the department ... um and frankly the question is a little bit surprising to me at times because ... he had to foot a US company ... where the ... pay of ... U S government official ... several million dollars for contract ... would not seem like a big deal ... and something that the department should focus on a significantly ... aam and so my question back is often what ... what's the big difference as to whether it's of foreign officials that the bride ... and white trivialize for corruption ... when ... hardly anyone would trivialize domestic corruption ... and my own Pursell view is ... that there's a strong publicist public policy interest in ... and do your see Foresman of both domestic and foreign corruption ... aam ... having said that and I think getting your point ... as a prosecutor ... um we have to exercise restraint ... and ... have a proportional response to the kind that ... I think in in some instances ... companies are spending too much money on investigations ... um ... it's it's not uncommon frankly for us to have a dialogue with the company ... that is purporting to be cooperating ... and we might be focused on a very limited to areas conduct were certain region ... and they come in and start reporting on this work doing around the globe ... aam ... more power to him you know if if they won a goofy thing to have a global problem and they wanted to identify and solve it that's great ... but it's often not at our request in the Times can actually be counterproductive ... to what we're trying to do and we might have a very limited narrow focus ... and calm and have certain asks from a company in expectations from a company is trying to cooperate ... candid of them will bless their focused on our conduct ... the focus on everything else ... it slows our process down using so you say that the lawyers are getting out of control and investigating too much well I'd I know I'm not sure I would characterize it necessarily is getting out of control I think I think that might happen on occasion I think ... in other instances companies ... recognize that they have a problem of broader problem ... and they're in their global investigations ... are undertaken not at our demand or insistence but because they have decided as a sound business decision ... that they need to get on top of of their assets and employees took Alexander listing in your face in the National does a lot of nonprofit work to help companies ... will with that cause us to ... come ... putting your words into my mouth would lower the costs of doing this sort of work ... as for getting us for the social good collectively ... out of compliance in understanding the marketplace so what are the socials the UC and would you agree that the ... bills the enforcement of the whole world dances was on the question has gotten to be a bit much ... now well for a solid business associations although I think it's really important to recognize the Social ales because for some reason traction gets a strange by in this country ... where it gets dismissed as a as a white collar crime that doesn't have the same says serious consequences as ... dumping ... affluence and Enda rivers overseas or trafficking in human labor but in fact in him bribery is ... a precondition for terrorism in this case ... the cases false documentation and weapons ... of these two teams in pharmaceutical products getting on foreign markets because of bribery ... and the sea ... and all sorts of ... problems are much larger than the business community that that affect the business community because you all have ... employees working overseas is a truly transnational crime into it crosses borders ... the NDP and almost every respect and it is a certain article crime with respect everything outs and goes on whether that is human trafficking were trafficking narco trafficking ... I can environmentally also ... tear to see companies dismiss as well while the Kings much attention to this or worse the condescension that comes with a licious held business is done overseas ... so that's why we didn't play long as ... is discussing having having said that ... I mean surprising and payments and that with Jeff on on one point which is I think is a lot of scare tactics by a by law firms ... so companies have heard a knock about the hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and ... generated by the FCPA ... Apple for of for ... in the billions when you tell it all out ... and sad day find something and they go to outside counsel on the outside counsel says we can't go into the DOJ and so we've done this Forster ... review of all problems everywhere ... now I don't know I'm not privy to this I don't know how much of that is generated by the DNKN damages is generated by love with was the most of ... amazing thing you've heard about ... the ... death of investigation in a given that I it's all anecdotal they were in the case one of our companies finding a fairly discreet and had a Department of Justice doesn't generally like stucco rogue employees that we believe that there ... was a fairly discreet problem in one country and by the time they were finished ... they had reviewed that ... that the facts had in that scenario in every single country in which they operate nature can happen anywhere else ... Casey really was that bad after that it generated a problem that wasn't a lack of controls and say it was in the tens of millions of dollars before they even considered going ... into this thing